The total area of sea ice is the sum of First Year Ice (FYI), Multi Year Ice (MYI) and the area
of ambiguous ice types, from the OSISAF ice type product. However, the total estimated ice area
is underestimated due to unclassified coastal regions where mixed land/sea pixels confuse the
applied ice type algorithm. The shown sea ice extent values are therefore recommended be used
qualitatively in relation to ice extent values from other years shown in the figure....

"1. The Government’s Role in Climate Science Funding...[is] embedded
in scores of agencies and programs scattered throughout the Executive
Branch of the US government. While such agency activities related to
climate science have received funding for many years as components of
their mission statements,the pursuit of an integrated national agenda
to study climate change and implement policy initiativestook a critical
step with passage of the Global Change Research Act of 1990.This Act
established institutional structures operating out of the White Houseto
develop and oversee the implementation of a National Global Change
Research Plan and created the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)
to coordinate the climate change research activities of Executive
Departments and agencies.[33] As
of 2014, the coordination of climate change-related activities resides
largely in the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy,
which houses several separate offices, including the offices of
Environment and Energy, Polar Sciences, Ocean Sciences, Clean Energy and
Materials R&D, Climate Adaptation and Ecosystems, National Climate
Assessment, and others. The Office of the President also maintains the
National Science and Technology Council, which oversees the Committee on
Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability and its Subcommittee
on Climate Change Research. The Subcommittee is charged with the
responsibility of planning and coordinating with the interagency USGCRP.
Also, the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy is housed within
the President’s Domestic Policy Council. While Congress authorizes
Executive branch budgets, the priorities these departments and agencies
follow are set by the White House. As expressed in various agency and
Executive Branch strategic plans, these efforts have been recently
organized around four components comprising (1) climate change research
and education, (2) emissions reduction through “clean” energy
technologies and investments, (3) adaptation to climate change, and (4)
international climate change leadership.[36]....By any of
these measures, the scale of climate science R&D has increased
substantially since 2001. Perhaps, though, the largest funding increases
have occurred in developing new technologies and tax subsidies. As can
be seen from Table 1, federal dollars to develop and implement “clean
energy technologies” have increased from $1.7 billion in 2001 to $5.8
billion in 2013,while energy tax subsidies have increased from zero in
2001 and 2002 to $13 billion in 2013, with the largest increases
happening since 2010. The impact on scientific research of government
funding is not just a matter of the amounts but also of the
concentration of research monies that arises from the focus a single
source can bring to bear on particular kinds of scientific research.
Government is that single source and has Big Player effects because it
has access to a deep pool of taxpayer (and, indeed, borrowed and
created) funds combined with regulatory and enforcement powers which
necessarily place it on a different footing from other players and
institutions. Notwithstanding the interplay of rival interests within
the government and the separation of powers among the different
branches, there is an important sense in which government’s inherent
need to act produces a particular set of decisions that fall within a
relatively narrow corridor of ends to which it can concentrate
substantial resources.

2.By any standards,
what we have documented here is a massive funding drive,highlighting
the patterns of climate science RandD as funded and directed only by
the Executive Branch and the various agencies that fall within its
purview.[40]
To put its magnitude into some context, the $9.3 billion funding
requested for climate science R&D in 2013 is about one-third of the
total amount appropriated for all 27 National Institutes of Health in
the same year,[41]
yet it is more than enough to sustain a science boom. Its directional
characteristic, concentrated as it has been on R&D premised on the
controversial issue of the actual sensitivity of climate to human-caused
emissions, has gone hand in hand with the IPCC’s expressions of
increasing confidence in the AGW hypothesis and increasingly shrill
claims of impending disaster.

3. The recent pattern of federal climate science funding, moving toward
emphasis on the development of technologies and their subsidization
through the tax system, suggests that climate change funding has become
more tightly connected to agencies like the Department of Energy, NASA,
the Department of Commerce (NOAA), EPA, and cross-cutting projects and
programs involving multiple agencies under integrating and coordinating
agencies, like the USGCRP, lodged within the Executive branch. The
allocations of budgets within these agencies are more directly
determined and implemented by Administration priorities and policies. We
note that the traditional role of NSF in supporting basic science based
on a system of merit awards provided (despite some clear imperfections)
certain advantages with regard to generating impartial science. In
contrast, even a casual perusal of current agency documents, such as The
National Science and Technology Council’s The National Global Change Research Plan 2012-2021, shows that those driving this movement make no pretense as to their premises and starting points.[39]

4. To be sure, the very opaqueness of these allocations and their
actual use only provides for “ball park” estimates. However, we believe
that the results presented in Table 3 come closer to a useful accounting
than what previously has been provided. We have combined data from
Leggett et al. (2013) and the AAAS Reports for Fiscal Years 2012 and
2013 (the only years for which the AAAS provides detailed budgetary data
for climate science R&D and climate-related funding). This
constrains Table 3 to including data only from 2010 through 2013. We
have adjusted budgetary data and categorized it in light of discussion
points 1-5 above. Note that the estimated aggregate expenditures for
climate science and climate-related funding (excluding tax subsidies)
from 2010-2013 in Table 3 are about twice that of the Leggett findings.

5.5 Funds administered by the Treasury Department in Table 2 are
credit lines and loans channeled through the World Bank earmarked for
international organizations to finance clean technologies and
sustainable practices; consequently such funds would also more
accurately be considered as climate-related sustainability and
adaptation....

8. This summary and the detail in Table 1, however, do not capture the
full scale of federal funding for climate science R&D. Two
complications must be considered to capture a more accurate estimate.
First, the entries in the first row of Table 1 for climate science only
refer to monies administered by the Executive branch via the office of
the USGCRP and does not include all climate-related R&D in the
federal budget. For example, the entry in Table 1 for the USGCRP in 2011
is just under $2.5 billion; yet the actual budget expenditures for
climate science-related R&D as calculated by the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) total about $16.1
billion.[38]
In addition, since USGCRP funding is comprised of monies contributed
from the authorized budgets of the 13 participating departments and
agencies, a more accurate estimate of climate-related R&D requires
deducting USGCRP funding from the aggregated budgets of those 13, most
of which are included in Table 2.

9. Leggett et al. (2013) of the Congressional Research Service provides
a recent account of climate change funding based on data provided by
the White House Office of Management and Budget (see Table 1, below).
Total expenditures for federal funded climate change programs from
2001-2013 were $110.9 billion in current dollars and $120.2 billion in
2012 dollars. “Total budgetary impact” includes various tax provisions
and subsidies related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (which are
treated as “tax expenditures”) and shows total climate change
expenditures from 2001-2013 to be $145.3 billion in current dollars and
$155.4 billion in 2012 dollars.[37]

10. The USGCRP operates as a confederacy of the research components of
thirteen participating government agencies, each of which independently
designates funds in accordance with the objectives of the USGCRP; these
monies comprise the program budget of the USGCRP to fund agency
cross-cutting climate science R&D.[34]
The departments and agencies whose activities comprise the bulk of such
funding include independent agencies such as the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, Environmental
Protection Agency, US Agency for International Development, the
quasi-official Smithsonian Institute, and Executive Departments that
include Agriculture, Commerce (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology), Energy,
Interior (the US Geological Survey and conservation initiatives),
State, and Treasury.[35]

''Path to Paradise'' drew controversy this week with
complaints by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in
Washington that the movie prejudicially portrays Muslims as a menace to
American society. The group called every Arab or Muslim character in the
movie ''an ugly stereotype'' and said that the film would be given the
group's ''Intolerance Award.''

HBO defended the film and said it would broadcast a
statement that the movie was not intended to reflect the views of most
Muslims and Arabs.

The movie diverges from reality as it glosses over
the tangled relationship between the informer, Mr. Salem, and the F.B.I.
team of Mr. Anticev and Agent Nancy Floyd, played by Marcia Gay Harden....Also left undetailed is the way Mr. Salem secretly
taped Mr. Anticev and Ms. Floyd in backstage law enforcement
strategizing that embarrassed the F.B.I. when it became public....

According to the National Weather Service,
the Bogard Rest Area in the Lassen National Forest recorded that frigid
temperature between Friday night and Saturday morning. The rest area is
north of Susanville.

“He’s honest, he tells it the way it is. He’s going to close the
border, which is very, very important. He’s using his own money. He’s
got so many things going for him,” gushed Nancy Blemaster, a retiree
from Venice, who gave a thumbs-down sign when asked about Bush and
Rubio.

“I just don’t like them. They’re part of the Republican
establishment, and the establishment is as crooked as the Democrats,”
she said....

The average of recent Florida polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com
shows Trump comfortably ahead among Republican voters with 32 percent
support, followed by Ben Carson with 18 percent, Rubio with 17 percent,
Ted Cruz with 11 percent and Bush with 9 percent....

“He’s got some guts and he tells it like it is.” Sarasota retiree Joanne DeFrusco likes the strength Trump projects.

Thursday's ruling counters an August report by the
U.N.'s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which told
the Dutch they should meet migrants' basic needs unconditionally.

"As long as they are in The Netherlands, they have to
enjoy minimum standards of living," co-author Ion Diaconu, wrote at the
time.

The EU's leading human rights forum, the 47-nation
Council of Europe admonished the Netherlands in 2014 for placing asylum
seekers in administrative detention and leaving many "irregular
immigrants" in legal limbo and destitution.

Doug Ross also writes about how Thankful he is for the GOPe to have exposed themselves in this election cycle."… […] Today I also give thanks to the Republican Party,
its leaders, and its media. I give thanks to the party’s agenda — in the
wake of the Mississippi Senate primary and numerous derogatory remarks
— as it made clear it sought to wage war against us. It is a fact that
the Republican establishment seeks to expel conservatives from the
party. (read more)"

Ross makes a good point; essentially: were it not for the GOPe
behavior a strong argument could be presented that Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio
or Scott Walker would be in much better shape. Heck, they might even
be viable – go figure.

In the Mississippi primary, Republican establishmentarians from
around the country solicited votes from Democrats to defeat the
insurgent challenge to Senator Thad Cochran. Their arguments were the
same ones used by the bipartisan ruling class that has ruled America for
a generation:

The role of government is to generate benefits for its
clients,

and those who object are bad people.

They paid many Democrat
voters (nearly all black) so called “walking around money” for their
votes, and have refused in many counties to let McDaniel aides examine
the voter roles to see whether these voters were eligible to cast
ballots.

The retail corruption is much less remarkablethan the acquiescence
therein of the establishment’s leadership – such as Karl Rove and The Wall Street Journal’s
editorial page. This is very remarkable. Rove’s super-PAC,
“Conservative Victory Project,” which played a leading role in
recruiting Democrats for Cochran,

To Republican and independent voters who are dissatisfied with the
direction of the country, the conflict between the pretenses and the
actions of such as Rove and of the Journal added insult to injury. The Journal,
for example, never loses an opportunity to declare itself the mortal
enemy of “crony capitalism” as it decries the direction in which America
has been headed, while the word “conservative” as part of the title of
Rove’s super-PAC intentionally evokes the complex of sentiments of
voters angry at the ruling class’s characterization of them as, well,
the litany: “racist, greedy, stupid,” etc.

But, in the Mississippi primary, the Republican Establishment’s
campaign was by and for crony capitalism, and employed the classic
themes by which the ruling class has beaten down the rest of America.

To Mississippians white and black, the establishment’s message was:
All this Tea Party talk about dangerous deficits and the need to cut
spending is a threat to responsible officials’ capacity to bring you the
jobs and federal assistance on which your prosperity depends.
Orchestrating that message was Haley Barbour, former governor of
Mississippi, former national chairman of the Republican Party,

In short, those who oppose the way things are done in America are racists.

You ought to hate them as they hate you.

Why do such things? Cui bono? Clearly such behavior by the Republican
establishmenthas nothing to do with the role it claims for itself of
opposition to the direction on which America has been taken in recent
decades,

never mind with anything “conservative.”

It has everything to
do with maintaining its status,

and that of its clients, within the
ruling class.

The Mississippi primary confirmed yet again that, if America is to go
in a direction other than the one of which some three fourths of
American disapprove, it is compelled to do so with a vehicle other than
the Republican Party."

----------------------------

"Angelo M. Codevilla professor emeritus of international relations at
Boston University. He served as a U.S. Senate Staff member dealing with
oversight of the intelligence services. His new book Peace Among
Ourselves and With All Nations was published by Hoover Institution
Press." Photo above from Liberty Law site.